Building your dream home isn't cheap. Basically when you are estimating costs for a renovation or extension, you should double it, and that will often be close to the price.

It's not that builders try to rip you off, but there's always things you forget to budget for, and we have a tendency to underestimate the value of good tradespeople and materials.

Quite often the costs will need to go beyond someone's savings, which is why a home loan can be useful. When i say home loan, you might think i mean a person loan, since you're not buying the house, but rather upgrading it. But a personal loan attracts a much higher interest rate, which will cost you a lot more in repayments in the long run.

So if you own the house (which I'm assuming you do since you're renovating it), then you will have a home loan. So it makes sense to borrow through that, and pay a lot lower interest rate.